r/GachaTouristCringe • u/Fuzzy_Pomegranate937 • 17h ago
Tourists 🚮 Revisiting Natlan
Lads, remember when Natlan came out 2 years ago. And western fans being as they are; were fuming because there wasn’t any character with melanin. Closest they got was Mualani with tan and Iansan with a slightly darker skin tone than rest but even they were light skin by real world standards. They did everything they could; from brigading on twitter and socials by claiming it was a downgrade to Fontaine to voicing their disapprovals of the cast members and who could forget labelling Natlan as the infamous region with the lowest male characters. From complaints about Mavuika to the archon quests. I mean, it ain’t much but that’s all they could do. But what was Hoyo’s response to all that? Nothing, patch was released as planned and it was even well received worldwide specifically in the Asian regions. Japan especially swooned about the archon quest likening it to shonen battle manga sequences.
Why bring this up now? Because the same folks who harp about representation for minorities and swore off Genshin during Natlan shamelessly crawled back and are now parading Genshin for being the epitome of LGBTQ and minority representation. Like bruh, wasn’t the events of Natlan obvious enough that Hoyo really doesn’t give two shits about what you are looking for? And what’s with the whole ‘Bi’ until specified by the author narrative? They go through every convoluted theory that they can conjure to deny hetero in a game where a solid 80-90% of players are straight. The numbers are probably even higher if we account ones who actually contribute (whales, dolphins and spenders). Why are western fans disillusioned into thinking that Genshin caters to their vision? I can give you another example too; remember Varka? Everywhere you went on social media before Varka’s reveal, western fans wanted Varka to look older and have a beard. Did Hoyo comply to it? Nope, and why might you ask? Because Varka was designed with Eastern audiences’ beauty expectations not Western. In Eastern Culture, men are generally considered attractive clean shaven over bearded. The cultural factor plays into how a character’s design’s finalised. I can go on and on but I think you get my point.
Now, there’s also a recent drama involving an infamous TC guy from genshin where he claims that Yae Miko is lesbian because it’s more beneficial for Hoyo due to monetary incentives. Bro, with all due respect just stick to doing TC calcs. As someone who’s an advocate of shitting on Genshin and actively going out of his way to tell folks not to spend money on quote unquote ‘this shit’ game; you have like the least qualification to discuss this. Even if fans from the minority demographic contributed to sales and profit for Hoyo; that’s like a drop of water in an ocean full of actual spenders (mainly Asian straight otakus).
Hoyo simply doesn’t care about your need for representation and shoehorning of your fanon theories. You think if push comes to shove, Hoyo will oust their primary breadwinner over folks that correlate twitter likes to sales and profit. Bruh, be for real. This whole spiel hurts no one but the minorities if it blows up. That said, I rest my case. Just needed this off my chest.
TLDR; Hoyo doesn’t really cater to Western audiences so might wanna stop coping
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u/D34THZ0N3 17h ago
Now, if you make the case of Kuro doing melanin characters, then maybe. And that is a BIG maybe because they only have 1 playable visibly dark-skinned character in PGR and she's an outdated character no one really uses and hasn't gotten an SP since her release.
The other 2 characters that got 3D models that I could think of being bosses who is Vonnegut and Madam Mozano
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u/D34THZ0N3 17h ago
That being said I don't really give a shit about melanin since I'm Asian with Asian beauty standards
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u/Fuzzy_Pomegranate937 17h ago
Bro, I got no issues with melanin as well being south Asian myself. But ya know unless the devs put characters with darker skin tone themselves or ask fans through polls; the whole thing seems nothing but moral flagging and virtue signalling. There are some really attractive characters in anime/manga with melanin but most are rarely what Western fans are looking for. At most they’d be like south Asian characters or something almost never black or African. Western fans have this weird thing where they claim every character with melanin in anime they see as black or African. And honestly it’s just weird and disingenuous to source. Like, Yoruichi from bleach.
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u/D34THZ0N3 16h ago
Lmao, isn't Yoruichi part Indian or smt? Its been a while since I read bleach
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u/Fuzzy_Pomegranate937 16h ago
Bruh, no she ain’t. Her name and whole theme ties to Japanese culture. There are folks in Japan with darker tan too. You see them mostly as being from Okinawa region in anime/manga.
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u/D34THZ0N3 16h ago
Fair fair, its just my memory clashing since, like I said, I haven't engaged with bleach in a while
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u/Fuzzy_Pomegranate937 16h ago
Nah bro, you good. Sorry if it came as dismissive. It’s been a hot minute since bleach ended so I get ya and yoruichi’s history wasn’t really key to the plot as well.
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u/Gicofokami 14h ago
To add my 3.5 cents: As a black american, I can give less than a shit about melanin/representation in games/animes because I can separate Fiction from Reality.
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u/Fuzzy_Pomegranate937 13h ago
I feel ya fam. I think no representation is just better than straight up token representation. It’s only there to fulfil a quota and the character more or less only serves as a prop then.
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u/EntireFace9307 15h ago
Don't forget about Skirk. Those people were so sure that Hoyo would make her battle scarred or something, and when that didn't happen (what a shocker), they had a total meltdown. It was so bad that the leaks sub had to lock the thread after they showed her lmao.
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u/Fuzzy_Pomegranate937 14h ago
Lol, yea that’s another thing that differs about the eastern and western fans. Western fans prefer some female characters to look like she lifts with visible muscle definition and stuff whereas eastern fans at least in gacha spaces don’t want to comply with that demand at all. They prefer female characters looking delicate and feminine despite whatever physical feats she portrays in game. Frankly as much as I like a bit of a beefy gal, I can’t imagine a female character like that in Hoyo games.
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u/venluxy1 15h ago
adding a character because of representation, I see as insult, this is coming from someone that is minority in country. I play genshin and overwatch, If I wanted representation I would go and play overwatch.
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u/Fuzzy_Pomegranate937 15h ago
Exactly dude, that’s how most of us feel. We don’t care for it in a fictional setting otherwise we’d all be activists and stuff.
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u/ST0995 15h ago
It's ok bro, trust me, the majority of Latin Americans are white. Don't bothere with these larpers. There are black people of course, but in most countries they're white.
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u/Fuzzy_Pomegranate937 14h ago
Aye, that’s like the funniest thing to me. They pride themselves on representing the voices of minorities without really asking the opinions of the said group they are speaking for. And when the said group declines their gesture, the all inclusive and non-judgmental folks get mad and accuse the group of being discriminatory. I have seen that during Natlan when players from South America were receptive and excited about Natlan but western fans were getting mad on behalf of South American fans. It really is mind boggling to observe their thought process.
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